Tinges of Kinesis
by kurgaya
Summary: WARNINGS INSIDE - Yukio isn't the problem. (Still, Tōshirō vows to freeze the little twit in a hunk of ice worthy of the desolate arctic of his relentless inner world and let Hyorinmaru use him as a whetstone to refine his claws). The kid's gigantic digital creatures on the other hand...


**Notes**: Written for my 'loss of vision' prompt for the **hurt/comfort bingo** on livejournal.

**WARNING:** Asphyxiation + very implied (temporary) major character death

(For **Corisanna** - SCARVES!)

* * *

**Tinges of Kinesis**

* * *

The thought is entirely inappropriate given the circumstances, but before sheer panic and overwhelming fear can consume the rapid shudders of his chest in a wildfire storm of pain, Tōshirō's entire concentration is engrossed on the idea that his skin probably matches his hair now and – _oh, I wonder if my lips are the same colour as my eyes_ –

Then the tips of his straw waraji barely skim the concrete beneath him – the sound of the ground churning in dread as he drags his toes across it is drowned by the roar of the creature behind him, and the captain's vision blurs with a hot rush of terror. Yet he is quick and he is agile, so instincts attempt to twist him to face the colossal body of his captor. Hyorinmaru's claw shatters like glass against the tremendous body – the plates of armour – and the shards explode outwards like the last of the air that rushes from Tōshirō's lungs. He gasps for his zanpakuto with a wrecked sound of desperation, but his throat locks around the second syllable and all that escapes the chill of his lips is a rasp. The frigid comfort of his reiatsu thaws about him – wildly, he tries to shove the edge of his blade into the figure behind him; there's no elegance to his actions now, none of his practiced skill and temperament. His opponent grapples for the sword, hands huge and intent, but Tōshirō would rather die than separate from his zanpakuto.

He won't let go.

His sight flickers with flecks of grey and crimson, contrasting the deathly cyanosis of his lips. Fear splatters down his body, bursting in blotches of agony across his torso. The captain clenches his hands; digs his fingernails into Hyorinmaru's hilt and wrestles with the emerald fabric of the scarf constricting his throat. His pulse is punching a terrified warning through his neck – his body convulses as it's beaten. One of the other monsters manifested by the whims of the lonely child he is trying to locate growls and barrels closer with heavy limbs and jagged teeth – Tōshirō's body is swung out of the way by the one holding him; he's a rag to them, a frightened, struggling rat.

The knot in his scarf is taut and he cannot manoeuvre the sharp of his zanpakuto to cut the cloth. He kicks the gigantic hand that reaches towards him because it's just about the only thing he can do – pain tremors up his leg and then erupts behind his ribcage. Tōshirō would curse if he weren't already wheezing a grisly din of a sound, but the creature backs off and the shinigami somehow manages to cough a choked laugh.

All bark and no bite – just like their geeky, blonde master.

Heaven knows where the kid is cowering. Tōshirō vows to freeze the little twit in a hunk of ice worthy of the desolate arctic of his relentless inner world and let Hyorinmaru use him as a whetstone to refine his claws. The mess he's currently thrashing about in takes priority however, and the captain is growing progressively more worried about the tingle of his fingers as he rips and tears at his scarf. He's sure that the creature crushing him is humanoid in shape but grotesquely large in all dimensions, but Tōshirō cannot distinguish any colours or shapes beyond the shadowy black and grey dots of his dwindling vision.

Ice cold sweat drips down his cheek. It's as if the blizzard of his hair is melting as the fiery sear of his chest engulfs his lungs and throat. His sight is so thick with streaks of darkness that he wouldn't be surprised if smoke was pouring out of his mouth, scorching its way up his trachea and blistering a black, burned path in its wake.

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to _think_. His favourite scarf is a hangman's noose, coiled around his neck like a viper but twice as light and a gift to him, not an execution sentence knotted at one end and universal in size. He shouldn't have worn it to battle – _what had he been thinking_? What ludicrous thought of suicide could have _possibly_ convinced him that donning a scarf on an assignment with an outrageous likelihood of encountering an enemy in combat (it involves Kurosaki – of course it was outrageous) was an action worthy of his genius?

Tōshirō might as well have tied the knot himself. He essentially had – his scarf loops around him twice fold due to its length; ridiculous in practicality and ridiculous in notion.

Senseless – that's what he was.

Indisputably _senseless_.

– And suffocating.

He kicks violently, trying to concentrate as much reiryoku into his feet as he can. One powerful blizzard would be enough to wipe the floor with his opponent's digital biology, but all that forms are scraps and shards of hail – they quake and crumble in his panic, raining down his haori. Frigid water pools in the shadow of his hanging. The massive creature watching him struggle simply emits a low groan and wiggles his gigantic toes to dry them. Tōshirō feels mortification bleed into his cracking composure, seeping through the professional façade. The water beneath him _snaps_ – a diamond fang plunges through the monster's ankle, driving through makeshift flesh and bone with the smoothest crunch of ice. A rush of air floods into Tōshirō's lungs as the creature flails in anguish, but his chest is frozen tight against his ribs and his heart won't calm to comprehend the momentary reprieve –

He's dropped.

The captain collapses onto his hands and knees and retches. He spits fire. Innocent, his scarf flops down his shoulders and neck, sweeping the swollen, purple veins. Tōshirō's head is screaming. His reiryoku buzzes, imploring him to flee, but his arms and legs feel ethereal and weak, as if he's melted from glacial foundations to slushy puddles in the heat of his fear. Sweat drips down his neck and he can just perceive an odd hissing noise over the thundering in his ears. His skin is cold but he's on fire – or, at least he thinks he is; hands poke at the defensive hunch of his body (_is the little runt dead_, they ask) and Tōshirō struggles to piece together his thoughts to produce cognitions more cerebral than a hysterical shriek of _no!_

He pitches himself sideways. The cat-minded creature squawks and tries to flatten him, clearly astonished by his capability of movement. Its fingers stomp and snare the loose end of Tōshirō's scarf, but the captain wrenches himself out of it and rolls to avoid recapture. The world Yukio Hans Vorarlberna has created spins in an array of colourful distortions. The digital monsters twist and scrabble around to be the first to chase him, and their voices blend into a deafening mix of grunts and roars. Tōshirō thinks he tries to yell something over the pounding in his head – maybe Hyorinmaru's name – but bile froths at the back of his throat and he has to press one shaking hand to his cobalt mouth to prevent himself from being sick.

Madly, he thinks he's swallowed the world.

It would explain the heavy weight in his lungs – liquid mercury and lead, perhaps, and the chambers of his heart engorging out of his chest at a rapid, agonising rate.

There's not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to appease him. His reishi cells are demanding that he breathe, but his lungs are a shuddering, quivering mess of broken elastic and Tōshirō's can't distinguish if they're expanding or not. He would look to check the motions of his chest, except his vision is obscure with a horrible murk – the shadows of his enemies, maybe, thick and shrouded over him like a starving pack of wolves. Even the pristine silver of his haori appears to be stained with darkness (_blood_, whispers his rationality, a distant drone past the screaming in his head), but his vision is hazy and he's probably mistaken.

Tōshirō notices idly that he's curled on his side. The scarf, abandoned, is the shredded trail of his life. His body is twitching as if it's trying to move – _a wise endeavour_, he thinks, but his eyes are unaccompanied by the numb weight of his fingers and toes when he strives beyond the paralysis. Hyorinmaru's sleek blade is lying next to him, the brilliance of the lone star of the hilt futile in drawing his attention away from the gradual chill oozing down his spine. The cold is his companion, but he's so pale that he knows it's going to kill him before the computerised creatures can get their chance.

He is destined to die on a plain of ice – the thought has always comforted him, in a sick sense of prophecy. Hyorinmaru will not permit him to die anywhere else. Yet there is no snow about him, and instead he feels as if he is ablaze. Terror and fear and panic and pain scorch through the motionless of his body – Tōshirō coughs them out; gasps them in; and watches them clog before his eyes like a smog. They choke him, twisting around what's left of his throat to paint their own interpretations of death, their fingers streaking acrylic purples and blacks across the sickly canvas of his skin.

Tōshirō closes his eyes to rid himself of the sight. The darkness is flawless behind his eyelids.

– And Hyorinmaru's thunder is sound.

An avalanche wrecks the fullbring, reducing it to an arctic ruin of avenging sleet and hoarfrost; terrible and gleaming with the gaze of a dragon's monumental wrath. The other captains will find Yukio encased in an icy cage and Tōshirō in a broken tomb – only one dead, but then he probably always has been.

("You've haven't gotten any taller," Kurosaki will say to him, but the substitute will only be privy to that piece of humiliating knowledge because he will stare down the length of the captain's frozen torso and watch it defrost with his hands bloodied and clenched, fingers locked together atop the trampled ribcage. "And I like the scarf by the way – it's a bit like Byakuya's old one, hey? Hell if I know why he's not wearing it anymore."

Tōshirō won't say anything in reply, but the answer will hang on the tip of his tongue like the first of his gasps and Hyorinmaru's name, cold and expressive and enfolded in relief.

He will catch Kurosaki waver in the corner of his vision and know that the teenager understands).

* * *

**End Notes**: Please leave a comment as you go! :)

**17/07/14**: Updated for improvement in reading clarity.


End file.
